The Mighty Gabby:

Embodying

Resistance in the

Creative ProcessANALYSIS OF TEXT AND PERFORMANCE –

JACK, CULTURE AND WUK UP (1981-2000)

BY

IAN W. WALCOTT-SKINNER, JOHN HUNTE

& STEFAN WALCOTT

Who is the Mighty Gabby?

Anthony Carter, known as

Mighty Gabby (Mar 30, 1948 - )

• Barbadian calypsonian

• Cultural activist

• Folksinger

• Actor

• Cultural Ambassador for

Barbados - 2003

• Politician - 1994

• Hon Doctorate, UWI - 2012

DEATH OF PM ADAMS

MARCH 11. GABBY WINS

CROWN WITH “WEST INDIAN

POLITICIAN” AND

“CULTURE”

20001984 1985 1986 1991 1994 19991981 1982 1983

THE GRENADA INVASION

END OF FIRST DECADE SINCE CARIFESTA 81. EARLY SIGNS OF DECAY OF

THE CULTURAL PLANT.

GABBY WINS CROWN

AGAIN SINCE HIS 1985 WIN

GABBY WINS THE CROWN AGAIN WITH “WUK UP”

THE BLP RETURNS TO POWER UNDER OWEN ARTHUR. GABBY LOSES TO BILLIE MILLER ON A

DLP TICKET

ERROL BARROW

RETURNS TO POWER

GABBY’S PENS THE CONTROVERSIAL

SONG “JACK”

GABBY PENS “BOOTS”

CARIFESTA IN BARBADOS –

CULTURAL WATERSHED

FROM JACK TO WUK UP - 20 YEARS OF SONGS OF RESISTANCE

Charting the creative process

Conception

“The Creative Design”

PROCESS

Expression

“The Creative Product/Performance”

OUTPUT

Perception

“The Creative Spark”

INPUT

Who or what is Gabby resisting?

The Dominant Power Structures

Who has the power?

Gabby responds to those who

influence through

position and policy.

THE ESTABLISHED

CHURCH OF ENGLANDBARBADOS TOURISM

AUTHORITY

NATIONAL CULTURAL

FOUNDATION

What are his instruments of

resistance?

Force of

Resistance

His Pen

His Voice

His Dance

The pen as the sword

1.TEXT

2.SUB-TEXT

3.MEANING

1.The Song

2.The Melody

3.The Rhythm

Articulation

Movement

Unspoken

Statement

Wuk-up

Freedom

Pièce de résistance

The I and I

Wine

“Rebolation”

The Creative Sparks - Jack

1. Controversy over statement

by Jack Dear – then

Chairman of Barbados Tourist

Board

2. Fear of “new apartheid”

where Black majority would

not have the right to the

beaches

3. Gabby was very anti the BLP

government led by Tom

Adams

The Creative Sparks –

Culture

1. Despite strides made since

1981 there were persistent

opinions that Barbados had no

culture of its own

2. Gabby felt need to prove that

we had a culture

3. There was little defense by

public intellectuals of a

Barbadian culture

4. Gabby took up the mantle in

song

The Creative Sparks –

Wuk Up

1. Ongoing debate on vulgarity

of wukking up

2. Public statements against

the art form by Church

leaders

3. The Church’s double

standards

4. Persistent devaluing of

African retentions of our

culture

What is Gabby resisting? Jack 1982

Jack - 1982

Culture - 1985

Wuk Up - 2000

The reaction was to the Chairman of

the Barbados Tourist Board – Jack

Dear

Here Gabby attacks the Establishment

1.Tourism policy and policymakers

that alienate locals from the processTourism vital, I can’t deny

But can’t mean more than I and I

My navel string buried right here

But a tourist one could be anywhere.

What is Gabby resisting? Jack 1982

Jack - 1982

Culture - 1985

Wuk Up - 2000

2. It also represents a broader critique against the

State during a period when it was thought that

there was a rapid militarization of Barbados by

creating a Defense Force especially in the wake

of the Grenada invasionCause Jack don’t want me to bathe on my beach

Jack tell them to keep me out of reach

Jack tell them I will never make the grade

Strength and security, build barricadeBut that can’t happen here in this country

I want Jack to know that the beach belong to we

That can’t happen here over my dead body

Tell Jack that I say that the beach belong to we.

What is Gabby resisting? Culture 1985

Jack - 1982

Culture - 1985

Wuk Up - 2000

By 1985 Gabby had become frustrated with the direction of

Barbadian and West Indian culture and speaks out

vehemently against North American cultural penetration,

especially through mass communication media

1. Again he targets the policymakersAll o’ this talk ‘bout culture

Driving me mad

I taking it hard

All ‘f this talk ‘bout culture

It driving me mad

I taking it hard

How them expect

To have culture plan

For Caribbean man

From North American?

We got to start here at home,

Then we will no longer roam.

2. He privileges: local cuisine, aspects of the local life,

Caribbean literature and our choice of sports.

What is Gabby resisting? Wuk Up 2000

Jack - 1982

Culture - 1985

Wuk Up - 2000

By 2000 Gabby is perhaps is dismayed that there

are still naysayers to what represents Barbadian

culture and his frustration turns to anger. This is

one of the most defiant pieces in his entire

oeuvre.I am angry, I am madI goin’ in the street and wuk up real bad

The priests can talk what the hell they like

I wukking up me body day and night

They want to take the African out of the picture

But Africa is buried in me

So we jooking, yea we jammingOn the streets Kadooment morning

For all of the church to see.

What is Gabby resisting? Wuk Up 2000

Jack - 1982

Culture - 1985

Wuk Up - 2000

1.Gabby lashes out against the Church (priests)

whom he sees as an embodiment of

European and Western oppression of Africans

and Africanity

2.Once more, the Police, the symbol of the

State comes under attack for their complicit

behavior. Tell the priest for me

This is me [sic] my body

I wining up bad on the highway

Them [sic] they could call police

I going like a beast

I don’t give a damn what they say

I’m African

Not from Babylon

The highway belong to we

Gabby’s Embrace of Elements of

Rastafarianism as Resistance Wuk up – “I’m African, not from Babylon”

Babylon refers to Marley’s “the Babylon system is a vampire”

Babylon represents the West and Roman-Greco system of political governance

Jack – “Tourism vital, I can’t deny, But can’t mean more than I and I”

The central dominant “I” becomes the focus of Rastafarian and Black resistance

During the 1970s, it was common to hear the term ‘I and I’, this emphasis on a new self

of resistance

Forms of Wuk-Up From The African Continent

throughout the African Diaspora

Gabby’s Use of Wuk Up in Performance

Jack

A youthful Gabby took off all his clothes in this performance

Wuk up was used in his on-stage performance to symbolize

1. Resistance against the system

2. Defiance against Jack himself

3. Freedom

4. His negritude

5. His culture

Gabby’s Use of Wuk Up in Performance

Wuk up

An older Gabby (with full grown locks) was more ‘graceful’ in

his movements in spite of the more angry lyrics

Here wuk up in his performance represented

6. An ode to the dance as an art form (note the dance is better

choreographed than in the free form used in Jack)

7. His declared Africanity

8. His defiance against the “Babylon system”

9. His “I and I’ – I the African, I who will not yield, I who will not succumb

to Western cultural penetration and hegemonic dominance

embodied by the Europeanized church

Conclusion – Gabby’s Art of

Resistance

•Defiant

Jack: Policymakers, The State

•Frustrated

Culture: North American Cultural Penetration

•Angry

Wuk Up: The Church (mainly Church of England)

Gabby’s Art

• Draws a pictorial of

local culture

• Stands up to

schizophrenic creolized

policymakers

• Defies and rebels

against the status quo

• Call to action

• Call for pride in our

Black selves as peoples

of African descent

Gabby

receives

honorary

doctorate

from UWI

2012